Owner Name or "Owner"

[carolthelen]

I am preparing the first mailing to my farm neighborhood (300 homes). I've read that it is better to personalize so I am handwriting all of these. I am finding that handwriting is time consuming but I also see another problem.

If I mail to a person who no longer lives there, the post office will forward or return my mailing. The object is to get the mail piece into the hands of the homeowner. So my question is...is it better to personalize and risk a forward or return or is it better to address to "Homeowner" and have a better chance of the mail getting to the address I am targeting? Thanks

[AaronSOLD]

How about: "John Smith or Current Resident" ???

[jessiesc]

Yeppers, "or Current Resident" is the ticket.

Wow, 300 by hand. Impressive

My hand would fall off before I got to 10.

[Bigtoe]

Personalize it to the owner. If you are going to the trouble to hand label then putting "or current resident" on there would defeat the purpose.

When the post office sends you back the ones that moved you can use them to update your database. By update I mean delete them. If they just bought a house there is no need to farm them for a few years.

When I farm I only mail to people who bought 4 years ago or before. Mailing is expensive so work the odds to make it more profitable. i assume you plan on doing this on a routine basis, if not then don't bother with this mailing. You have to do it over and over and over and over.

[DebbieJ]

I would have to say "Homeowner"...then you know it would get there. Are you mailing postcards?

[gregharaksin]

i stand by the bigtoe on this one.

[carolthelen]

Thanks for all your input. I think I will do what Bigtoe suggestes and I do plan on sending mailings on a regular basis. Just going through the growing pains about how to address, what to send when, etc.

My plan calls for mostly postcards but with some regular information mailings. I am going to do one mailing per week for 8 weeks then one mailing every two weeks. The broker I have now only charges $80 per month and a transaction fee of $125. Since I left a broker who charged huge office and broker fees, I have a bigger budget for marketing.

I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Carol

[Tom_Ryan]

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